Relief of King Ashurnasirpal II Followed by an Attendant
Unknown · Neo-Assyrian period, reign of Ashurnasirpal II, 883-859 BC
On a slab of pale alabaster over two metres wide, the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal the Second stands in profile holding a bow in his left hand and two arrows in his right. He wears the tall Assyrian crown, a fringed robe, pendant earrings, bracelets with rosettes and others with animal heads, and at his side a sword and two daggers. Behind him a beardless attendant, a eunuch of the court, carries a bow and quiver and holds a fly whisk. The two figures are cut in the low, precise relief of the ninth-century palace workshops, and a band of cuneiform, the king's standard inscription, runs across the slab.
The relief comes from the palace of Ashurnasirpal at Nimrud, ancient Kalhu, which the king built as his new capital and lined with hundreds of such slabs. Its text is the so-called Standard Inscription repeated on almost every panel, listing his titles and conquests. The slab was given to the Louvre in 1855, only a decade after Austen Henry Layard's excavations revealed the palace. It is one of the earliest Assyrian reliefs to reach France.
Did You Know? The same inscription was carved across nearly every slab of the palace, so the king's boast was repeated hundreds of times along the walls.
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